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UNITED STATES OF AMEEIOA. 
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j MEDITATIONS 



Five Joyful Mysteries 

TOGETHER WITH 

A Letter Dedicatory to the Mother Superior 
of the Sisters of S. Mary 

B y Algernon S. Crapse y, 

Rector of St Andrew s Church, Rochester, N. Y. 




NEW YORK 

James Pott & Co., Publishers 
14 and 16 Astor Place 

1888 




COPYRIGHTED 

By Algernon S. Crapsby. 



of the Union and Advertiser Co. 
Rochester. N. Y. 



"Without Controversy Great is the Mystery of God- 
liness. God manifest in the flesh." 



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ERRATA. 


ige 31 line 10, 


for with read "unto." 


42 4, 


" woman read "women." 


43 ' 25, 


" even read "ever." 


" 6 5 23, 


" So read "To." 


83 " 24, 


" might read " mighty." 


11 95 " 18, 


" retaining read "returning.' 



NOTE TO THE READER. 



These meditations are presented to you 
with some hesitation. They treat of matters 
which can only be handled with reserve. 
They are not severely logical and are not 
written for your instruction or admonition. 
They were written simply for the sake and 
delight of thinking. You are to read them 
not as a substitute, but as an aid to thought. 
The writer has not considered it best to cum- 
ber his pages with quotation marks. What- 
ever is here set down has been long in his 
mind, and is his by right of possession. The 
writer ventures to hope that the meditations 
may be found useful for reading in the family 
or friendly circle. He has had that in view 
while writing them. 



LETTER DEDICATORY. 

To the Mother Superior of the Sisterhood of 

St. Mary : 

Dear Reverend Mother : — Of the many- 
blessings which God in these latter days has 
bestowed upon the Church of the English, 
none is cause for greater gratitude than the 
revival among us of the art and practice of 
meditation. This holy exercise is no longer 
confined to the Latin Communion nor to the 
religious orders among ourselves, but is a part 
of the life of an increasing number of men 
and women who are in, but not of the world. 
In the open churches which now, to the glory 
of God, are common with us, may be seen on 
any day kneeling figures. These souls may 
be bowed in prayer, but are just as likely to 
be engaged in meditation ; not so much sup- 
plicating God's mercy and grace as contem- 
plating His divine perfections. Meditation is 
sometimes defined as mental prayer, but this 
is hardly a proper definition. Prayer is ad- 
dressed to God. Meditation, on the con- 
trary, is the soul in conversation with itself. 



8 Five Joyful Mysteries. 

The subject of the conversation being some 
truth of God that the soul is seeking to see 
more closely and about which, like the Child 
Jesus in the temple, it is asking and answer- 
ing questions. In this act of devotion man 
communes with his own heart in his chamber 
and is still. Meditation is really a study in 
Spiritual Theology. Spiritual Theology does 
not prove, defend nor arrange the Faith. To 
prove and explain is the province of Apolo- 
getic, to defend of Polemic, to arrange of 
Dogmatic Theology. When these have all 
done their work then Spiritual Theology takes 
from them the Faith as proved, defended and 
arranged and contemplates it. This, the 
highest of the Theologies, does not build, she 
only admires. She goes round about Jeru- 
salem, marks well her bulwarks and tells the 
towers thereof ; she does not conquer or 
defend, for her warfare is accomplished ; she 
goes in and possesses the land which the 
sword of the Lord and Gideon have already 
made her own. She does not plant nor prune 
the vine and fig tree ; she simply enjoys the 
fruit thereof. Spiritual Theology is not the 



Five Joyful Mysteries. g 

man, the lion nor the calf. She is the 
eagle. She mounts upward as an eagle. On 
eagle's wings she poises in mid-air, and far 
above all doubt and mistrust in the clear blue 
of God's presence she gazes into the heart of 
the Sun of Righteousness. To engage in the 
study of Spiritual Theology is therefore the 
very best employment of our faculties, as all 
of these are brought into play by an act of 
meditation. By means of the imagination 
we make the truth to stand before the eyes 
of the soul. We place it in the midst of its 
proper surroundings, setting the apple of 
gold in its picture of silver. We not only 
hear or read, we see the truth. When we 
meditate upon the Passion, our Lord is as 
evidently crucified before us as He was before 
the eyes of those of whom it is said that sit- 
ting down they watched Him there. With 
our reason we unfold and examine the truth 
which the imagination presents to us. We 
ask the why and the wherefore. We test the 
truth to see whether it is simple or com- 
pound, and what is its origin and nature. We 
do with it as the chemist does with his ma- 



io Five Joyful Mysteries. 

terial. We put it into the crucible of our in- 
tellect and separate truth from truth, getting 
each as nearly pure as we can. We find out 
whether it is a truth which springs naturally 
in the heart of man, or whether it comes to 
him by divine revelation. Whether it is an 
absolute truth, true always and everywhere, 
or a relative truth, true only because of some 
hardness of heart, true only for a given peo- 
ple at a given time. When we have thus as- 
certained the nature of our truth then we look 
at it in its relations. We talk of it to our- 
selves as an astronomer talks of a star. Each 
star having its own place and glory draws in 
its train all other stars. The divine law of 
attraction causes it to send its thrill of sym- 
pathy from one end of the heavens to the 
other, and the "starlight mingles with the 
stars." So each truth leads to all truth. We 
have to follow only one ray of light in order 
to come to the center of the sun. When the 
understanding has firmly grasped one single 
truth, and knows its nature and relation, then 
the life is safe and the mind rests on the solid 
ground of verity. When the truth is thus 



Five Joyful Mysteries. ii 

mastered the heart cleaves to it ; the affec- 
tions embrace it, and there is a marriage be- 
tween truth and the soul. Then in the bridal 
chambers of the spirit there is a song of love- 
singing, My beloved is mine and I am His. 
He feedeth among the lilies. By resolution 
the will confirms the desire of the heart. A 
solemn vow and covenant is made whereby 
the soul promises to keep the truth ; and how- 
ever some Joshua may warn and say, Ye can- 
not serve the Lord, for the Lord your God is 
holy, still the undaunted will cries out : Nay, 
but I will serve the Lord, and though truth 
may plead like Naomi and say turn again, my 
daughter, go your way, the will shall answer, 
with Ruth, entreat me not to leave thee, not 
to return from following after thee, for 
whither thou goest I will go. Where thou 
lodgest I will lodge. Thy people shall be my 
people, thy God my God. Where thou diest 
I will die, and there will I be buried, and God 
do so to me, and more, also, if ought, but 
death part me and thee. This steadfast 
adherence of the will to the truth is the clos- 
ing act of the meditation, after which the soul 



12 Five Joyful Mysteries. 

descends from the high place and goes torth 
into life, careful to make all things according 
to the pattern seen in the Mount. 

Such, Dear and Reverend Mother, is that 
art of meditation by which the imagination 
pictures, the reason penetrates, the affections 
desire and the will appropriates the truth of 
God. And blessed is the man whose delight 
is in the law of the Lord and in His law will 
he exercise himself day and night. By the 
practice of meditation the soul becomes mas- 
ter of truth and is no longer blown about by 
every wind of doctrine. The trouble with 
most Christians is that they have no clear 
conception of Christianity. All is vague and 
uncertain and they are at the mercy of every 
gainsayer. They are like an unlearned man 
in a chemist shop. He sees all the jars 
arranged in a row with their names upon 
them. He knows a little about each of them, 
but not enough to be sure which is medicine 
and which is poison. The physician comes 
into the same shop and moves about with the 
assurance of a man of knowledge. He takes 
down this and that, selecting at once the bane 



Five Joyful Mysteries. 13 

and antidote. He has meditated upon the 
nature of drugs, and therefore he knows. 
And so the Christian ought to know the 
truths of his religion and not hold them at 
the mercy of every pamphleteer and novel 
writer. If he finds occasion to change his 
belief, he should do it not from panic, but 
from strong conviction. And the habit of 
meditation fosters steadfastness of mind. 
The meditation has been found helpful, not 
only in private devotion, but also in the 
public offices of the church. The spoken 
meditation has by many priests been consid- 
ered the best way to make the mysteries of 
the faith known to their people It has a 
power and a charm which the sermon does 
not possess. Sitting in his chair in the midst 
of his disciples the man of God is not so 
much a preacher as a seer, with veiled eyes 
and unpremeditated thought he tells to listen- 
ing ears what he sees and hears in the spirit. 
Like the son of Bosor he falls into a trance, 
having his eyes open and advertises them of 
what is now and shall be in the latter day. 
In retreat the meditation always has the chief 



14 Five Joyful Mysteries. 

place, the instruction is only a preparation lor 
the meditation. And it is the increasing use 
of these seasons of retirement which has 
given such impetus to the practice of medita- 
tion. And in the Parish Church it is a 
frequent substitute for the sermon, especially 
in the seasons of Advent and Lent. The 
Five Joyful Mysteries were the subject of the 
closing meditations at the first retreat, where 
I served as conductor. This retreat was held 
for the associates of your order in the Chapel 
of St. Gabriel in the summer of 1883. When 
I recall these meditations I am again in the 
midst of scenes of surpassing spiritual and 
natural beauty. I stand on the heights of 
Peekskill vith Old Crow Nest in all his 
rugged grandeur opposite me and look down 
on the waters of the Hudson that flow 
between. I see St. Gabriel nestled in the 
midst of the hills ; I am in that upper room 
once more with its holy altar, where day by 
day we offered the unbloody sacrifice. I see 
the many lights burning. I hear the low 
chant of the Psalm, the sweet music of the 
hymn, the monotonous cadence of the pray- 



Five Joyful Mysteries. 15 

ers. And at Vesper time, when that to me 
the most beautiful office of the church is 
sung, then we feel that it is good for us to be 
here, that this is none other than the house of 
God ; this is the gate of heaven ; here is the 
general assembly and church of the first-born; 
here is the marriage chamber of the Lamb ; 
this is that heavenly Jerusalem where 

Our lady sings magnificat 
With tones surpassing sweet ; 

And all the virgins bear their part, 
Sitting round her feet. 

Because you were God's instrument that 
brought me this great work, because your 
voice called me to this leadership in this won- 
derful movement toward the higher life. 
Therefore Dear and Reverend Mother, I desire 
to dedicate these meditations to you, and 
whatever comes of their sale beyond the cost 
of printing, I wish to go to the chapel fund of 
St. Gabriel's. I have written the meditations 
somewhat in full, hoping thus to aid begin- 
ners in the mastery of the art. I send them 
out, Dear and Reverend Mother, under your 
pious patronage, hoping that your prayers and 
the prayers of all the Sisters may make up for 



16 Five Joyful Mysteries. 

what is lacking in them. Pray that the word 
of God here presented may have free course 
and abound, and that from these points of 
outlook our eyes may see the glory of the 
coming of the Lord, and in that glory we may 
rejoice, in that coming find salvation. 

Commending not only my book, but my 
soul to your prayers, I am, and trust ever to 
be, Your servant in Christ Jesus, 

Algernon S. Crapsey. 

St. Andrew's Rectory, 
Rochester, 
Eve of St. Andrew. 1888. 



Five Joyful Mysteries. 17 



Meditation I. 

THE ANNUNCIATION. 



SCENE— The City of Nazareth, the Closet 
of St. Mary. 

THE MYSTERY OF THE DIVINE CALL. 

First Consideration — The gifts and calling 
of God are without repentance. 

Second Consideration — The callings are 
different, but every call is to perfection. 

Third Consideration — The preparation foi 
the call is in secret. 

Fourth Consideration — The call is received 
with hesitation. 

Fifth Consideration — The call must be 
accepted with entire submission. 
Affection — Faith. 
Resolution — To make daily an act of Faith. 



18 Five Joyful Mysteries. 

SCENE. — It was evening in the little city 
of Nazareth. The snows of Lebanon glowed 
warm in the light of the setting sun. The 
shadows grew every moment longer and 
deeper as they moved silently across the 
valley of Jezreel. From the fifteen hills that 
stand round about Nazareth as the Lord 
stands round about His people, came the last 
sounds of departing day. There was a bleat- 
ing of sheep as flock after flock came from the 
watering and passed under the rod into the 
fold. There was a noise of wings among the 
fir trees, where the birds build their nests. 
There was the sound of the grunting of camels 
as the caravan with its weary beasts and stil] 
more weary men came round the hills, along 
the Via Maris bearing the riches of the Indus 
to the West. The gates of the city were open 
and through them came these wayfaring men 
to tarry for a night. The streets of the city 
were full of boys and girls playing in the 
streets thereof and here and there an old 
man with his staff in his hand for very 
age. Quickly the light passed away — no lin- 
gering twilight between the day and the night, 



Five Joyful Mysteries. 19 

but suddenly darkness covered the earth and 
gross darkness the people. By and by the 
roofs were deserted and the doors were shut. 
Now nothing was heard but the moving of the 
leaves as the wind stirred the branches, a cry 
of some night bird from the hill and a rustle 
of insects in the grass. In this time of holy 
calm the spirit of the Lord moved upon the 
face of the waters of human life bringing in 
the eight day of Creation. A pious maiden 
had entered into her closet and shut to her 
door and was praying to her Father in secret, 
and as she prayed she had an open vision. 
The room wherein she was kneeling was filled 
with light and she saw the appearance of an 
angel. He was decked with light as with a 
garment : he was clothed with majesty and 
honour. He came in unto her and said, Hail 
highly favored, the Lord is with thee, blessed 
art thou among women ; and she was troubled 
at his saying and cast in her mind what man- 
ner of salutation this should be; and the angel 
said unto her fear not Mary for thou has 
found favor with God ; and behold thou shalt 
conceive in thy womb and bring forth a son 



20 Five Joyful Mysteries. 

and shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be 
great and shalt be called the Son of the High- 
est ; and the Lord God shall give unto Him 
the throne of His father David. Then said 
Mary how shall this be seeing I know not a 
man. And the angel answered and said unto 
her, the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee and 
the power of the highest shall overshadow 
thee, therefore that holy thing which shall be 
born of thee shall be called the Son of God. 
For with God nothing shall be impossible. 
And Mary said, behold the hand maid of the 
Lord be it unto me according to thy word and 
the angel departed from her. The light died 
out of her chamber, the heavenly presence 
passed away. The maiden looked, and behold 
she saw the same stars shining in the heavens, 
the night air was moving the leaves as before, 
the same bird was singing on the hill and 
the insects were stirring in the grass. All was 
apparently the same and yet all was changed, 
in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye that 
change had taken place. While the angel was 
departing from her Mary conceived in her 
womb. The incarnation of the Son of God 



Five Joyful Mysteries. 21 

was an accomplished fact. The promise of 
God made unto the fathers, unto which prom- 
ise the twelve tribes constantly serving God 
day and night, had hoped to come, was in 
that moment fulfilled. Then the Word was 
made flesh and was tabernacled in us. It 
was as yet a secret between the angel and the 
virgin, but a secret soon to be revealed. For 
a little while men should not see Him, but in 
a little while they should see Him and behold 
His glory as the glory of the only begotten of 
the Father, full of grace and truth. In this 
scene the Blessed Virgin is the central figure. 
The angel comes to call her to that work 
whereunto she was appointed. And she hears 
with trembling that it is her vocation to be 
the mother of the Lord's Christ She is that 
virgin which shall conceive, that woman 
which shall compass a man. And what shall 
she do in the day thereof? She shall do 
nothing but finish the prayer which the 
angel's coming had broken off, then lay her 
down and sleep and take her rest, knowing 
that the Lord only can make her dwell in 
safety. 



22 Five Joyful Mysteries. 

First Consider a tion. — This scene sets 
before the understanding the nature and 
process of the Divine Call. The gifts and 
callings of God are without repentance. 
Once made they fix the destiny of the 
called to a thousand generations. These 
callings are as many and as various as the 
infinitely varied thoughts of God himself. 
He calls the grass to grow upon the mountain 
and herb for the use of men ; He calls the 
fish to swim in the waters and fowl to fly 
above the earth in the open firmament of 
heaven ; He calls the wild ass to the wilder- 
ness and the ox to the stall ; He calls man 
from the dust and breathes in his nostrils the 
breath of life Among men he calls some 
apostles and evangelists ; some prophets and 
teachers. These callings are all made ac- 
cording to the determinate counsel of God 
after the good pleasure of His will. By them 
the moon knows her season, the sun his 
going down. They are fate. The mystery 
of the Divine Call must ever trouble the 
thoughts of the heart. Why God should 
make some vessels to honor and some to dis- 



Five Joyful Mysteries. 23 

honor passes the ken of mortals. Why one 
man should be born in that good land where 
the yellow waters of the Tiber wash the walls 
of Rome, and another in that dreary region 
where the Yukon runs cold to the sea ; why 
one should live in that favored part of earth 
where the gospel of Christ is, in a measure, 
truly preached, truly received and truly fol- 
lowed ; while his brother and his sister just 
as dear to God, must dwell in heathen lands 
afar, where thick darkness broodeth ; why 
one should be quick of understanding in the 
way of the Lord and another learn with diffi- 
culty, these things which make men to differ, 
are the hard sayings of Destiny. We are for- 
ever tempted to ask who did sin, this man or 
his parents, that he was born blind ? The 
greatest of human intellects have employed 
themselves in the solution of this problem. 
St. Augustine and Charles Darwin each made 
it the study of his life. The one finding the 
reason for these differences in the will of 
God, the other in the gropings of Nature. 

Second Consideration.— -The devout 
soul accepts these calls as from God, leaving 



"24 Five Joyful Mysteries. 

science to settle whether made by the slow 
method of evolution or daily acts of creation, 
and finds consolation for all hardship in 
the fact that each creature is called to its 
own perfection. The grass must be green 
upon the mountain, the herb meet for the 
use of man. The mighty hand and the 
stretched out arm are seen everywhere, in 
the deep that lieth under where Leviathan 
takes his pastime and in the heights above 
where the eagle stirreth up her nest. The 
couchant lion is the symbol of Judah's 
strength ; the plodding ass of Issachar's pa- 
tience ; there is perfection of weakness as 
well as of strength ; the babe is as perfect as 
the man. If St, Paul speaks of the perfect 
man in Christ Jesus, Socrates shows us the 
perfect man out of Christ Jesus, not the per- 
fection of Christian faith and charity, but the 
perfection of heathen truthfulness and forti- 
tude. To every creature comes the same 
word of exhortation, Be ye perfect as your 
Father in heaven is perfect. God calls each 
one to his place and commands him to be per- 
fect in that place. With each kind good the 



Five Joyful Mysteries. 25 

whole of Creation is very good. The nature 
of the Divine Call is not only to fix but to 
direct ; not to stop the progress but to shape 
the course. Having grasped this truth the 
understanding ceases to ask who hath sinned 
this man or his parents that he was born 
blind, but looks to see the glory of God 
shown forth in him. 

THIRD CONSIDERA TIO&.— The. joyful 
Mystery of Annunciation reveals not only the 
nature but also the process of the Divine 
Call. 

The preparation for that Call is always 
in secret. None can know how the bones 
do grow in the womb of her that is with 
child. There in the secret recesses of 
nature the human life is shaped to its des- 
tiny. None can tell whether it will be 
light or dark ; whether it will be man or 
woman. The seed is planted in darkness that 
the flower may bloom in the light. The 
Blessed Virgin was not born in the purple. 
There was no sign about her to show that she 
was to be mother of the Great King. To her, 
as to all, the Kingdom of God, came without 



26 Five Joyful Mysteries. 

observation. She lived secluded even more 
than is common with women. Until the time 
of her virginity she was kept in the hidden 
chambers of the Temple. There, like some 
violet hiding in the grass, she grew in the 
grace of God, and then she was espoused to a 
man named Joseph, a man of lowly life and 
work, and in his house she hid herself again. 
The city where she lived was the least of all 
cities, a city despised and rejected of men, 
and she herself knew not for what she was 
preparing. When the angel came she was 
troubled at his saying. It- was so new, so 
strange, so intolerable a thought with her that 
she was to be the mother of the Christ that 
she could not receive it. The world about 
him is not only ignorant for what a man is 
making ready ; he does not know himself ; his 
own soul is not in the secret. He is ever in 
doubt as to the Divine intention, and the cry 
from darkened eyes everywhere is, " Lord, 
what wilt Thou have me to do ?" Even when 
the calling is assured one often fails to see 
the connection between it and the prepara- 
tion. The novelist Dickens could never think 



Five Joyful Mysteries. 27 

of his younger days with patience. It seemed 
to him cruel that a lad of so delicate organ- 
ization and so high promise should be made 
the drudge of a blacking warehouse and have 
to run errands from the gaol. He could 
never, in the days of his fame and fortune, 
forgive the ignominy of those earlier years. 
He was never able to see that he owed all he 
was and all he had to that very distress. 
While pasting his labels and dodging in and 
out of the doors of the Marshalsea he was in 
training for his calling in life. Then he was 
schooled in the ways of London's waifs and 
strays and became the master delineator of 
their life and manners, so that he will be 
remembered in his line with his land's lan- 
guage. But he himself was never able to 
fathom the secret of his preparation. To 
every man as well as to the disciples in the 
upper room the Lord is saying : What I do 
thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know 
hereafter. 

Fourth Consideration— -The Divine 
Call thus prepared for in secret is received 
with hesitation. Its strangeness and great- 



28 Five Joyful Mysteries. 

ness causes doubt. Whatever is great in life 
comes upon us unawares. It seems to Mephi- 
bosheth impossible that he should eat at 
the King's table. What is thy servant that 
thou shouldest look upon such a dead dog 
as I am. This self distrust is the character- 
istic mark of the truly called. The shrink- 
ing back ; the natural question, how can 
this be seeing I am what I am. Only the un- 
called go skipping into the various vocations 
of life. The priest who comprehends that 
upon his sympathy and discretion may 
depend the eternal welfare of a soul will con- 
sider long betore he will open his ear to the 
penitent. The physician who knows that his 
skill or ignorance means life or death to his 
patient may well pause on the threshold of 
the sick chamber, and the lawyer who feels 
that on his lips, hang the honor, and it may 
be the life of his client may well begin his 
pleading with a beating heart. Fear is in the 
heart of the hero as well as in the heart of 
the coward — and the hero because he is a 
hero is the more afraid. What makes him a 
hero is not the absence of fear, but the pres- 



Five Joyful Mysteries. 29 

ence of a courage and a faithfulness which 
overcome fear. 

Fifth Considera tion. — The third step 
in the process ot the Divine Call is com- 
plete submission to the conditions of the 
call. Having heard the call, and follow- 
ed it, there must be no further turning 
back. No haggling or bargaining, but an 
entire self surrender to the chosen vocation. 
Whatsoever it involves of labor, and of loss, 
and every vocation does involve labor and 
loss ; must be accepted in all their fullness. 
Whatever of pain and shame comes with the 
birth of Jesus, that pain and shame the Vir- 
gin must bear. Napoleon said to Metternich. 
What are three hundred thousand men to me, 
and saying so he spoke as a true soldier. To 
be careless of life is a condition of the sol- 
diers calling. It is his vocation to gain vic- 
tories be the slaughter what it may. The 
first commander of the army of the Potomac 
thought mainly of saving his own men, and 
saw them perish uselessly on many disastrous 
fields, the last commander of the same army 
gave his attention to beating the enemy and 



30 Five Joyful Mysteries. 

though his losses were heavy, yet they were 
never useless ; in the end he saved both his 
army and his country. If a man is afraid to 
kill and be killed he must not be a soldier ; 
if a judge is afraid to decide he must not be 
a judge ; if a physician fears the fever he 
must give over his profession and a priest 
who will not risk his purity must never under- 
take the cure of souls. Any attempt to evade 
the conditions of our calling is followed by 
punishment swift as the death of Ananias. 
Who would fain follow in the way of Chris- 
tian renunciation and yet keep back part of 
the price of the land. We can lie to the 
world and to ourselves, but rot to the Holy 
Ghost. We can cheat the markets but not 
the universe. Only as we accept the condi- 
tions of our calling shall we have its full 
glory and reward. The Blessed Virgin sur- 
rendered herself entirely to the will of God. 
That surrender put to the hazard her fame 
and her life. She came under the suspicion 
of her husband and was liable to the scorn of 
the world. She was not afraid to trust God 
with all that was dear to her womanhood, and 



Five Joyful Mysteries. 31 

because she was thus submissive she sits in 
the high places of the earth and all genera- 
tions call her blessed. 

Now, O My Soul — the understanding has 
given thee knowledge of the nature and 
process of the Divine Calling. Its nature 
is to give thee thy room in the house of 
thy Father : its process to lead thee through 
secret ways and through much distress from 
strength to strength until with the God of 
Gods thou appearest with every saint in Zion. 

THE AFFECTION— -Which this meditation 
should cause to arise in thee is the affection of 
faith. Thou shouldest desire to believe. Thou 
shouldest love to think that there is nothing 
impossible with God. He is over all God 
blessed forever. At His word the stormy 
wind ariseth, and at His rebuke there is a 
great calm. The World thinks that every 
man is of the earth earthy, but do thou 
cleave to this one as the Lord from heaven. 
It is easy to see that men fall in the slime pits 
of Sodom, but do thou lift up thine eyes and 
see the Lord bringing back His own as he did 
sometime from the deep of the sea. Love to 



32 Five Joyful Mysteries. 

believe more and more of the goodness and 
the love and the power of God. Do not for- 
ever with veiled lids seek for thy Jesus in the 
dust, but look up and thou shalt see thy 
Jesus, and all his saints riding upon white 
horses. When doubts assail thee and inward 
persecutions afflict thee then look up stead- 
fastly into heaven and thou shalt see the 
glory of God and Jesus standing at the right 
hand of God. Love to believe as Mary 
believed and then thou shalt also be able to 
sing Magnificat. Thou needest not so much 
a faithful love as a loving faith. 

RESOLVE. — As the results of this medita- 
tion to say Lord I believe, help thou mine 
unbelief. Make an act of Faith every day. 
Saying I fully accept all that God has reveal- 
ed, and the church teaches, this is that Faith 
in which I live and in which I hope to die. 
This is my rest. Here will I dwell for 1 
have a delight therein. 



Five Joyful Mysteries. 33 



Meditation II, 



THE VISITATION. 

Scene — The Hill County of Judah and tha. 
House of Elizabeth. 

THE MYSTERY OF BEGINNING. 

First Consideration — Beginnings are in lone 
liness. 

Second Consideration — Beginnings are in 
dependence. 

Third Consideration — Beginnings command 
sympathy. 

Fourth Consideration — Beginnings are in 
fear and joy. 

Fifth Consideration — In this world the 
spiritual life begins. 

Affection, hope. 

Resolution to go forward daily. 



34 Five Joyful Mysteries. 

SCENE. — In one of the cities of the Hili 
Country of Judah an aged woman was seclud- 
ed in the midst of her house. In her retire- 
ment she was rejoicing in the loving kindness 
of the Lord who had taken away her reproach 
among men. Though she was past age the 
Lord had given her hope that she should bear 
a son and this was the fifth month of her that 
was called barren. As she meditated she 
thought of the days of her youth when she 
prayed and waited for that which never came. 
She thought of the prime of her womanhood 
when she became calmly resigned to the fact 
that she should never be a mother in Israel, 
that no child should even rise up to call her 
blessed. In those days she was sore afflicted. 
She was a reproach unto her neighbors. They 
said that for her secret sins she was cursed of 
God with barrenness. 

But she held her peace and sinned not with 
her lips, but said in her heart it is the Lord, 
let Him do what seemeth Him good. And 
now her enemies were confounded. They 
wondered at the gift of God which was 
bestowed upon her ; they marvelled that she 



Five Joyful Mysteries. 35 

should in her age receive the blessing of 
youth. It seemed that for her God had kept 
the good wine of life until the end of 
the feast. By His decree she had taken her 
place in that line of Hebrew women whose 
sons born out of due time, had been the 
glory of Israel. With Sarah she laughed 
for her ]^saac was coming to the birth. 
With Rachel she rejoiced in the increase 
of love because of her Joseph saying, 
now will the people love me. With Hannah 
she vowed the fruit of her womb to the Lord 
because it came from the Lord. 

But greater than the men of old was the 
child of her bearing because he was the 
sum of them all. He was the more than 
a prophet. He was the end of the law and 
the beginning of grace. Therefore he was 
called John, which means grace. Seeing 
that he was the messenger going before 
the King of Grace to prepare His way. 
These things were not yet revealed to the 
woman in all their fullness, but she knew 
enough to be glad and rejoice in the mercy 
that was coming to the people of God. 



36 Five Joyful Mysteries. 

As she thus mused the fire kindled. A 
spark of kindred heat fell upon the tow of her 
meditation and set her heart aflame. Her 
secret thought had answer from without. She 
heard a knocking and she went and opened 
the door and before it stood a maiden soiled 
with the dust and wearied with the length of 
her journey She had come from the City of 
Nazareth in Gallilee. She had saluted no 
man by the way. She had entered into no 
city for rest. She had come with haste that 
from this woman before whose house she 
stood she might receive the confirmation of 
her hopes. Thus by mutual attraction Eliza- 
beth and Ma~y were brought face to face. 
Each with eyes full of wonder. If Elizabeth 
had conceived after time Mary had conceived 
before time. These conceptions were not of 
time, but of eternity. Not of nature but of 
grace, and each woman sought from the other 
that assurance which comes of a common 
experience. The elder woman bowed before 
the younger and she said what is this that the 
mother of My Lord is come unto me. And 
Mary said my Soul doth magnify the Lord 



Five Joyful Mysteries. 37 

and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my 
Saviour. 

FIRST CONSIDERATION. — The Joyful 
Mystery of the Visitation which this scene 
presents to the understanding, is the mystery 
of beginnings. All beginnings are in lone- 
liness. God was alone in the beginning of 
the world. Then when the world came 
forth at the call of God, it was alone at the 
first. It was without form and void. It 
could not be seen nor heard and there was 
darkness upon the face of its waters. It was 
a dark thing moving through darkness and 
there was no light to see it by. And this 
mystery of beginnings is a continuing mystery. 
The everlasting day of Creation is from the 
evening until the morning. From the eve- 
ning darkness of not being to the morning 
light of being. Every day a new life sets 
itself off from the sum of life ; a new con- 
sciousness rises out of the unconscious ; new 
Avorlds are forming from the nebulae of worlds; 
new streams rising in the desert. The first 
thing necessary to this new life is that it shall 
separate itself ; build for itself dividing walls. 



38 Five Joyful Mysteries. 

to house its spirit against the intrusion of all 
other spirits, and this separation is most 
decided in the beginning of life. The hard 
shell shuts the young bird in. Before it can 
fly with other birds it must grow its own 
wings. All sight and sound are bred in dark- 
ness and silence. 

The new life in Christ Jesus was subject 
to this condition of loneliness. His incar- 
nation by causing His mother to be blessed 
above all women, separated her from them. 
Her exaltation lifted her above the plane 
of common life into the lonely heights of 
blessedness. Then was no one with whom 
she could take counsel. The secret life 
that was in her sealed her lips. It was 
not yet an articulate life able to speak for 
itself and she could not speak for it. It is 
impossible to explain a life beforehand or give 
excuse for it. It must explain or excuse 
itself. So Mary was dumb in the presence of 
suspicion, and it was this loneliness that drove 
her to the hill country of Judah, to the house 
of Elizabeth, which was the only place in all 
the world where she could look for sympathy 



Fivk Joyful Mysteries. 39 

and companionship. And the son of Mary- 
inherited this loneliness. By his sinlessness 
He was separated from His brethren. He 
was the House of the Lord established in 
the top of the mountains. It is the highest 
peaks which are the most barren. As one of 
our own poets hath said : 

' ' He who ascends to mountain tops " 

Will find the loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and 

snow. 
He who surpasses or subdues mankind 
Must look down on the hate of those below, 
Though far beneath the earth and ocean spread 
"And far above the Sun of Glory glow. 
Round him are icy rock, and loudly blow 
Contending tempests on his naked head 
And thus reward the toils that to these summits lead." 

The Lord was alone in His perfect holi- 
ness as the snows of the mountain are alone 
in their stainless purity. He came unto His 
own, and His own received Him not. He 
was the light shining in darkness, and the 
darkness comprehendeth it not. He was 
called upon to tread the wine press alone, 
and of the people there was none with Him. 
He was alone in the agony of the Garden; 
alone in the death on the Cross. All great 



40 Five Joyful Mysteries. 

life seeks to hide itself that it may work in 
secret. No one knows the saints until they 
are dead. A holy life is a separate life. 
Close to God is far from the world. The call 
to the saints is a call to depart. Get the out 
from thy land and thy kindred, and from thy 
father's house, unto a land that I will show 
thee of. Go three days' journey into the 
wilderness and sacrifice to the Lord your 
God. Come ye apart unto a desert place and 
rest awhile. The call is from Ur of the 
Chaldees to the wanderings of Canaan ; from 
the flesh pots of Egypt to the barenness of 
Sinai ; from the companionship of the upper 
room to the loneliness of Calvary. 

Second Considera tion. — The new 

life is not only lonely, it is also dependent. 
It has about it the color of selfishness. The 
cry of the child never spares the mother. 
The nestling does not hesitate to take the last 
morsel from the maw that feeds it. It is an 
universal order that the elder shall serve the 
younger. But that which appears to be sel- 
fishness in the beginning is not selfishness, it 
is dependence. It is consciousness of life 



Five Joyful Mysteries. 41 

the call of the helpless for help. It is this 
cry of the unborn to be born, of the born to 
live, that fills the earth with its vast ministra- 
tions of love. Because of it the foxes have' 
holes and the birds of the air have nests. In 
answer to it men toil and women travail. 
Nature gathers all her forces to protect the 
beginnings of life. Her strongest love is 
maternal. When the Lord Christ came He 
entered into nature. He subjected himself 
to this condition ot dependence and reposed 
without a fear on the bosom of his mother. 
And His religion is not a religion of force, but 
of dependence. It is the Wisdom that stands 
in the street and cries. It calls to human 
hearts for shelter ; it stands at the door and 
knocks. This is that wonderful mystery of 
visitation* God does not force the will to 
serve Him, but He visits the heart with salva- 
tion. He comes as the new born child, res- 
cuing us from ourselves by the importunate 
demands of His love. He asks to be born 
in us and to be nourished by us. He appeals 
to us for compassion, saying, Is it nothing to 
you ? All ye that pass by behold and see if 



42 Five Joyful Mysteries. 

there is any sorrow like unto my sorrow. 
The infant is not more dependent on the love 
of its mother than is the Lord Jesus on the 
love of his people. In this world He has 
nothing but what they give Him. In the 
days of his flesh holy woman ministered to 
Him of their substance, and now his name is 
kept alive on the earth by the loving minis- 
trations of his people. Cold hearts chill 
Him ; hard hearts kill Him. There are many 
sepulchres of Joseph in human hearts where 
the dead Christ lies buried, betrayed to death 
by the familiar friends in whom he trusted. 

Third Consideration. — Life would 
indeed be a misery if loneliness and depend- 
ence were its only conditions. But these call 
for and find almost instant relief in sympathy. 
Mary may be alone and forlorn in Gallilee, 
but in the hill country of Judah there is one 
who can feel for and with her. Every life is 
born not only after but into its kind. It does 
not come into a land of strangers, but into 
its own land. It is waited for. Kinfolk and 
neighbors rejoice at its birth. The fact of 
kinship takes away the sting from the fact of 



Five Joyful Mysteries. 43 

dependence. It is no disgrace for the child 
to receive from the parent. The great Son 
of God hath nothing but what He hath 
received from the Father. And in the sym- 
pathy of kindred life there is refuge from 
loneliness. 

As soon as a life comes into being it 
is drawn irresistibly into the fellowship of 
lives like unto itself. This great word 
Sumpathos, like feeling for like, explains 
the universe. Every particle of matter 
attracts every other particle, according to 
known law. The cry is earth to earth, dust 
to dust, and ashes to ashes. By this princi- 
ple the movements of the heavens are regu- 
lated. It is the sympathy of star dust for 
star dust that makes the union of the worlds. 
It is sympathy which causes the swallows to 
build their nests together under the eves, and 
the cattle to herd on the hillside. If they 
have no shepherd the sheep will fold them- 
selves. The unity of the flock arises from the 
likeness of the sheep, and this unity is natu- 
ral. No amount of ingenuity can even make 



44 Five Joyful Mysteries, 

the wolf lie down with the lamb, the leopard 
with the kid. 

Sympathy is the medium by which life 
makes itself known to life. The old life 
renews itself in the young, the young finds 
itself in the old. A man does not know 
himself until he has spoken to his fellow man. 
When deep calls unto deep then there is a 
noise of water pipes. When the new life in 
Mary salutes the older life of the same order 
in Elizabeth, then there is a leaping of babes. 
John leaps toward the Lord Jesus, drawn by 
irresistible power of attraction. In the King- 
dom of God 'the law of attraction reaches its 
perfect development. 

The Church of God is nothing else than 
a communion of saints ; a society of like 
minded. A common nature is the bond 
of the body, and unity is secured by inward 
principle rather than by outward enactment. 
The sheep and the goats may mingle, but 
they can never mix. The good and bad 
fish may be drawn into the same net, 
but will never be served on the same table. 
The wheat and the tares grow up together, 



Five Joyful Mysteries. 45 

but the one for burning, the other for garner- 
ing. Sympathy is a principle of repulsion as 
well as of attraction. It drives Mary from 
Nazareth as well as to Judah. And all the 
turmoil of the world and the church is sim- 
ply the effort of unlikes to get away from 
each other. It is Michael and his angels 
casting out the devil and his angels. So 
there is an essential unity of the church 
which can never be destroyed. As long as 
there are hearts that love the Lord Jesus 
Christ, so long will there be a church at unity 
with itself. For Christ shall be known in His 
saints. It was not their love for each other 
so much as their common love for their Lord 
which caused Elizabeth and Mary to be of 
one mind in a house. And in the generous 
sympathy of the older woman the younger 
found relief from her fears and assurance of 
her joys. 

FOURTH CONSIDERATION.. — For all be- 
ginnings are in fear and joy. There is fear 
of the unknown. The new life does not 
know which way to go, nor what to trust in. 
Everything frightens the child at first. It is 



46 Five Joyful Mysteries. 

afraid of the light and afraid of the dark. 
Each new face startles it. And the soul new 
born to God cries, I heard thy speech and 
was afraid. Depart from me for I am a sin- 
ful man, O Lord. 

But fear at the beginning is not so great 
as joy. The first draught of life is always 
the sweetest. The corn makes the young 
men cheerful and new wine the maids. It 
is young feet that beat the earth with most 
assurance. The young are afraid of many 
things but they are not afraid of death. 
Every life has in itself the .promise of 
its own immortality. Once born, forever 
born. The life given can never be taken 
away. To the young death is only a sound 
and a sight — not a reality. The Valley and 
the Shadow lie far away ; they never look to 
come to them. And to the joy of living is 
joined the delight of freshness. There is the 
constant excitement of discovery. The world 
will always be a new world to new genera- 
tions. It is only after many years and much 
disappointment that Caius Cassius is aweary 
of the world. When Mary sings Magnificat 



Five Joyful Mysteries. 47 

she cannot think of the piercing sword. 
Young converts are always the most sanguine. 
To them it is enough that they are converted. 
At the beginning they are already at the end. 
They do not suspect the weariness of the 
journey. 

The good God gives the morning bright- 
ness for encouragement as well as the eve- 
ning calm for reward. A tired man will 
hardly set forth on a pilgrimage. Morning 
clouds keep the traveller at home. A joyless 
beginning is as unnatural as a joyful end. 
The Star of Bethlehem shines on Jesus' birth; 
the three hours' darkness shroud His death. 
In the day when the Lord God created the 
heavens and the earth the morning stars 
together sang to welcome their creation. In 
heaven also beginnings bring joy. There is joy 
in the presence of the angels of God over one 
sinner that repenteth more than over ninety 
and nine just persons which need no repent- 
ance. God rests in life assured ; He joys in 
life begun. A good man is calm. A good 
boy is joyful. This is the mystery of begin- 
ning. Every life begins in loneliness ; enters 



48 Five Joyful Mysteries. 

upon dependence ; commands sympathy; has 
about it the fear of strangeness, and is full of 
the joy of living. 

FIFTH CONSIDERA TION.— And this my- 
stery explains the history of the saints of 
God. We cannot read that history without a 
feeling of despair. The holiness of the saints 
cost them more than we care to pay. They 
are so lonely, their cry is the cry of Elijah, 
And I am left alone and they seek my life. And 
their dependence on God is extreme. The 
foxes have holes and the birds of the air have 
nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to 
lay his head. They have indeed sympathy, 
but it is the sympathy of the few not of the 
many. It is Joshua the son of Nun, and 
Caleb the son of Jephuneh with their 
good report, against not only the ten spies 
with evil report, but against the twelve tribes 
of Israel. The saints are so fearful also. 
Their cry one to another is Work out your 
own Salvation with fear and trembling. Pass 
the time of your sojourning here in fear. 
Their faces do indeed shine with holy light 
when they come down from the Mount of 



Five Joyful Mysteries. 49 

God but the world does not see nor compre- 
hend that light. Here they are destitute, 
afflicted, tormented and we esteem them 
smitten of God. Far from regarding them 
with favor, He seems to vex them with His 
sore displeasure. 

The lot of the man of this world seems 
altogether the happier. He is not lonely 
for the world is full of people like him- 
self. He is not dependent for the strength 
of the earth ministers to him. When we see 
the man of the world in his purple and fine 
linen and the man of God in camels hair and 
leathern girdle we are apt to cry, the ways of 
God are not equal. The one has all the work 
the other all the reward. But we must 
remember that the man of God is just enter- 
ing on his life while the man of the world is 
at the end of his. We are comparing the 
infancy of the one with the full manhood of 
the other. When the man of this world was 
in the womb he was just as lonely when first 
born just as weak and fearful as the saint of 
God is now. If we would judge rightly of the 
two lives we must compare beginnings with 



5o Five Joyful Mysteries. 

beginnings and we shall find that the ways of 
God are equal. That there is one law for the 
son born in the house and one for the 
stranger that cometh into the land. Nature 
and Grace are not contradictory they are 
different phases of the same system. 

If the soul then have these marks upon it, if 
it be lonely and dependent, if it hath a heart of 
sympathy for Jesus crucified, if it goes fear- 
fully because it knows not the way and at the 
same time has that assurance, that St. Andrew 
had when he said joyfully to his brother Sim- 
on we have found him of whom Moses in 
the law and the prophets did write, if these 
marks be upon him then hath he the tokens 
of God's favor, then is he clothed with that 
coat of many colors which Jacob made for 
his son Joseph because he loved him. And 
dipping that coat in the blood of the Lamb he 
can hold it up before God and cry " tell us 
whether this be thy son's coat or no" being 
sure of the answer. "It is my son's coat." 

THE AFFECTION— Which this meditation 
demands of the soul is the affection of hope. 
Love to look upward and look onward. The 



Five Joyful Mysteries. 5* 

pathway up the mountain side does not go on 
forever it comes at last to the top. Disap- 
pointment is the highway to fruition. The 
green fruit comes between the blossom and 
the ripeness. If in this life only we have 
hope we are of all creatures most miserable. 
If we did not see before us the holy mount 
burning with fire we should not care to go 
forward. If we had everything we should 
want nothing. No state of life is so intoler- 
able as a state of satiety. Love to hope for 
all things good and fair, that thy life may be 
crowned with promise, for go onward as thou 
wilt the good and fair shall ever be beyond 
thee in the infinite reaches of the infinite 
nature of God. 

AND Re SOL VED — To go forward. Let 
each day mark thy progress. Never say here, 
but there. Lift up thine eyes and see the 
height of Moriah in the distance and say to 
the young men let us go and worship God 
yonder. 



52 Five Joyful Mysteries. 



Meditation III. 



THE NATIVITY OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR 

JESUS CHRIST. 

SCENE.— Bethlehem, the cave and the 
field. 

Mystery — The mystery of an accomplished 
fact. 

First Consideration — Life limited by call- 
ing. 

Second Consideration — Life unlimited in. 
relation. 

Third Consideration — Limitation the result 
of previous choice. 

Fourth Consideration — Every calling irk* 
some. 

Fifth Consideration — Every calling has its. 
own joy. 

Affection — Charity. 

Resolution — To seek daily the love of Gobi. 



Five Joyful Mysteries. 53 

SCENE. — It was at the close of a winter 
day when two travelers, a man and a woman, 
entered the fields of Bethlehem. They re- 
joiced to see the City of David stretching 
along the limestone ridge, and even the tower 
of Herod frowning from the heights was a 
welcome sight, for it was the end of their 
journey. They had come from far-off Galli- 
lee and were sadly in need of rest and shelter, 
not only because they were weary, but more 
because the woman's full time was come that 
she should bring forth her first born. They 
made haste to pass the short distance that 
was between them and the city gates that 
they might not be overtaken by darkness 
without the walls. As they passed along 
they could not but admire the beauty and 
remember the renown of the city. The corn 
fields and the olive gardens spread their rich- 
ness on either hand, and the vineyards ran 
in terraced stairways up to the walls of Beth- 
lehem. They could see the hills of Judah 
rising one above another in the farther dis- 
tance, and before them was the road leading; 
to Jerusalem. 



54 Five Joyful Mysteries. 

They were of the house and lineage of 
David, and they remembered that this was 
the city where David dwelt. This was 
that Bethlehem, that house of bread, to 
which Ruth and Naomi came from the fields 
of Moab after the famine, and now these 
children of Ruth and of David were coming 
back after years of exile to fulfill the com- 
mands of their earthly and their heavenly 
King, and to give to the city by their coming 
an undying celebrity. The heart is full when 
the eyes are lifted for the first time, or after 
long absence to places beautiful in them- 
selves and beautiful in their memories. But 
this man and woman could hardly pause to 
enjoy the one or think of the other. It was 
necessary that they should reach the city 
without delay. 

As soon as they came within the gates the 
man left the woman with the ass standing in 
the street while he went to find a place of 
refuge. He came to the Kahn, but the court- 
yard was full of camels and asses and a crowd 
of men going to and fro feeding their beasts 
and preparing their own supper. The man 



Five Joyful Mysteries. 55 

looked over the motley, noisy throng and saw 
at once that there was no room for them in 
the inn. He returned sadly to the woman, 
and there, standing like the Levite of old in 
the streets of Gibea of Benjamin, he waited 
for some one to take him in. But no one 
came. The city was full of strangers and 
every householder had his own friends to care 
for, and these two were left to stand without 
while the night came down upon them. The 
man went up and down seeking a place of 
shelter, and at last he found a cave in the 
hillside. It was a stable for cattle. The 
beasts were in their stalls eating from their 
mangers. There was room here and so the 
man brought the woman and made for her a 
bed of straw in an empty stall, and having 
done all they could they waited for the birth. 
In the city first the children then the men 
and women went to bed, and while these 
watched the city slept. It was such a night 
as had for ten thousand years rested upon 
the heights of Bethlehem, and had this man 
stood in the door of the cave as Elijah stood 
in the door of the cave at Horeb, he would 



56 Five Joyful Mysteries. 

have seen no special sign of God's presence. 
The sky was clear and every star was 
shining. In that upper region there was 
clearness, coldness and beauty, but no love. 
It was nothing to the stars in their serenity 
that a woman was travailing in pain on the 
earth. A new and wonderful life was just 
coming into the world. But all down the 
hillsides were sepulchres in every garden 
which prophesied that this one, too, must die. 
All this vast silence of earth ahd sky is typi- 
cal of the life of man which cometh out of 
the silence to go into the silence again. At 
the foot of the hill there were shepherds 
abiding in the field, keeping watch over their 
flocks by night as they had watched since the 
days when David followed the ewes great 
with young. To them, as to him, the word 
of God was revealed. For the silence of the 
night was broken. The angel of the Lord 
stood by them and the glory of the Lord 
shone round about them and they were sore 
afraid. But the angel said unto them fear not, 
for unto you is born this day, in the City of 
David, a Saviour which is Christ the Lord, 



Fivf. Joyful Mysteries. 57 

and this shall be a sign unto you, You shall 
find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes 
and lying in a manger ; and they came and 
found Mary and the babe lying in a manger, 
and when they had worshipped the holy 
Child they left Him with His mother. She 
took Him and laid Him to her bosom and 
found her calling in administering to his 
necessities. 

FIRST CONSIDERA TION. — This scene of 
the nativity so familiar to the devout im- 
agination presents to the understanding the 
mystery of an accomplished fact. The Son 
of God is born into the world. Every 
fact or thing done, when it is done, takes 
its place in the universe and compels 
recognition. It, in its degree, limits every 
other fact. It changes times and seasons, 
and everything must adjust itself to this new 
condition. 

Mary can no longer doubt. Her calling 
and election is sure. It is not now a ques- 
tion of what she may do, but of what she 
must do. The little hand that lies so 
lightly upon her bosom is the iron hand 



58 Five Joypul Mysteries, 

of fate. It, for all it is so light, has the 
mighty weight of compulsion forcing her into 
a certain line of duty. From this time forth 
she must live not for herself, but for her 
Child Jesus. Not her pleasure but His 
necessities must shape her course. What she 
might have been, a prophetess under the 
palm tree, a pilgrim to far countries, the 
mother of many children, all that is past 
and she must be content with what she is, the 
Virgin Mother of the Lord's Christ. This 
is that law of limitation which is a condition 
of every calling. Every life, as it is called, 
passes from the indefinite to the definite ; 
from the nebulous region of infinite possibili- 
ties into the clearly marked estate of one 
fixed fact. 

Life's openings are countless as the stars of 
heaven and like the sands upon the seashore 
innumerable. The youth looks and sees a 
hundred roads running in an hundred differ- 
ent directions, his imaginations covers them 
all ; his feet can follow but one of them. A 
maiden in the pride and beauty of her 
maidenhood is every man's admiration, but in 



Five Joyful Mysteries, 59 

the days of her wifehood she is only one 
man's love ; she passes from admirations to 
admiration ; she loses the many to gain the 
one. This limit which we may not pass frets 
our life. The vast and the vague possibilities 
float up and down like motes in a sunbeam ; 
they are nothing in themselves, but they spoil 
the light. The scholar in his closet will read 
of the field of battle and will repine because 
he handles the pen rather than the sword. 
The farmer behind the plow looks to the 
smoke of the city and turns sadly in the fur- 
row as he thinks of the merchant in the pur- 
suit of his gains and says so might I have 
been had I chosen differently. The mother, 
surrounded by her children, sees the holy 
sister passing free from care, and sighs as she 
thinks of the ties that bind her. The very 
world, as it makes its monotonous journey 
round the sun, must sometimes wish to break 
away and find new pathways in and out 
among the stars. Everything is both infinite 
and finite ; limited and unlimited ; infinite in 
possibility, finite in reality ; unlimited in 
idea, limited in fact. And it is the infinite 



60 Five Joyful Mysteries. 

rebelling against the finite ; the unlimited 
chafing within its limits that makes much of 
the unrest of life. The very dust of earth 
creeps upward through the trunk and branches 
of the trees and out to the edges of the leaves 
to escape the narrowness of its environment. 
But the law of limit is the necessary law of 
Creation. Each can only be one thing — not 
everything. God Himself (if we may rever- 
ently speak so of Him), is limited by His 
Creation. When He created man, then the 
will of man resisted God. There are now two 
wills in the world — God's and mine. This 
mystery of limitation is the mystery of the 
incarnation. The Son of God was born of 
one woman, in one place and time. He was 
an Hebrew of the Hebrews, of the tribe of 
Judah and of the house of David. He was 
born in the middle and waste of the years of 
human life ; in the days when Augustus was 
Emperor of the Romans and Herod King of 
the Jews. His birth fixed the conditions of 
His life and the manner of His death. He 
taught as an Oriental scribe by parable and 
dark speech, and He died as a Roman 



Five Joyful Mysteries. 6i 

malefactor, the cruel death of the cross. His 
own coming changed all this. After Him the 
scribe ceased and the cross disappeared, but 
He Himself suffered the gainsayings of the 
one and the pains of the other. Because He 
entered into the world He was subject to its 
limitations. This prophet, mighty in word 
and deed, was after all only Jesus of Nazar- 
eth ; willing to live the life and die the death 
of man. 

Second consideration. — But a life, 
while thus limited by its calling, is unlimited 
in its relations. Each fraction is a part 
of the whole and must be taken with the 
whole if we would comprehend it. The 
sun is one thing in one place, but its 
light radiates through the solar heavens and 
enlightens all the worlds. The scholar can- 
not be the soldier, but he can and does 
furnish the soldier with the knowledge of 
warfare. Roger Bacon, in his cell, drives the 
mailed knight from the field and renders use- 
less the moat, the drawbridge and the wall. 
This man who never saw a battle, changed all 
the methods of war. It is the wheat which 



62 Five Joyful Mysteries. 

the farmer gathers that goes to the fartherest 
east and is sold for spicery and silk. His 
lonely life in the country sustains that intense 
and varied life of the city. 

The Lord Jesus lived in the Holy Land 
ever so long ago, but to-day He is Christ in 
us the hope of glory. He lived once and 
He died once, but by so doing He brought 
Himself into relation to all things living and 
dying. Of the living, it is said, ye are dead 
and your life is hid with Christ in God ; of 
the dead they shall hear the voice of the Son 
of Man and live. And this fact of unlim- 
ited relationship satisfies the craving for the 
infinite. If man cannot be God he can at 
least pray to God. If he cannot be one with 
Him in nature he can be one with Him in 
love. 

THIRD CONSIDERA TION— The limit and 
relationship of a man's life is in a great meas- 
ure fixed by his own choice. It is true that 
God calls, but man makes that calling his 
own by accepting it. That Mary was a 
woman was a thing entirely outside her own 
will. But she by her purity and by her 



Five Joyful Mysteries. 63 

seeking made herself meet for the grace of 
God, and when God called she was ready, 
saying : Behold the handmaid of the Lord be 
it unto me according to thy word. 

It was because it was the habit of her life 
to choose the good and reject the evil that 
she was able to make choice of the highest 
good when it came. It is this power of choice 
that makes man to be as God. He shares 
with God in the ordering of the universe. If 
free will be not apparent, but real then a 
man's choice is able to change times and sea- 
sons. He can within the limits of his power 
make the world over. He can suspend one 
natural law by the intervention of another. 
He can create no new material, but he can 
change from one form to another and make 
the elements serve his will. These considera- 
tions make the vast importance of his choice 
immediately apparent. He is responsible for 
the exercise of his will to a higher will. If 
he choose contrary to that will there is con- 
flict. It is man's wrong choices that are the 
evil of the world. Everything has its season 
and proportion and to choose out of season 



64 Five Joyful Mysteries. 

and proportion is to pervert the way of 
God. Man would have knowledge of evil. 
And instead of waiting to know evil as the 
opposite of good, he chose to know evil as 
the substitute of good instead of waiting to 
see evil by its effects in others, he chose to 
experience those effects in himself. He will 
have not the experience of the physician, but 
the experience of the sick man. And that 
choice shut against him the gates of Paradise. 
And a man's choice is final. After the will 
acts it cannot undo the action. When Mary 
said behold the hand maid of the Lord be it 
unto me according to thy word, then she sur- 
rendered herself and the power of the highest 
overshadowed her and she became the mother 
of the Lord's Christ. Before Ananias decid- 
ed to sell the land and lay the price at the 
Apostle's feet it was in his own power. 
Afterward it was death to keep back part of 
the price. Before the tree falls, it may fall 
toward any point of the compass, but if the 
tree fall toward the north or toward the 
south, in the place where the tree falleth there 
it shall be. It is the nature and finality of 



Five Joyful Mysteries. 65 

man's choice which makes him a moral being. 
If his actions were nothing in themselves and 
had no consequences, then there would be no 
such thing as right and wrong. It is because 
man's will is real, real as the will of God, 
because he is a self determining being that he 
is accountable. He is the only creature on 
earth that can be wicked. 

Fourth Consideration. — Every call- 
ing of God is irksome. It is a call to duty and 
duty means some what to be done. When 
Mary accepted the high function of mother- 
hood, the duties of her calling did not end 
they only commenced with the birth of the 
child Jesus. And no calling in life so com- 
pletely sets forth the law of irksomeness as the 
calling of the mother. The care of children 
is a constant care. The mother, unless she 
shirk, cannot be free day nor night. The 
child is a burden which she may never lay 
aside. She must do for it a thousand little 
things which in themselves are most vexatious. 
So dress and to undress, to nourish the little 
body, and guide the infant soul, keeps the 
mother busy all the time, and the crying of 



66 Five Joyful Mysteries. 

the child cannot but wear her nerves. She 
does indeed give her life for the life of the 
child. Many rebel against this irksomeness 
and ruin their lives in consequence. The 
maiden looks forward with eagerness to 
the day when she shall be a wife and 
a mother. She thinks of her husband and 
her children as so many joys. She does 
not consider that they are also so many 
duties ; that she must wait on the call 
of her husband and answer the cry of her 
children. The Blessed Virgin had the care 
as well as the love of the child Jesus. Only 
a strong affection can carry the mother 
through the weariness of her daily life. 
Therefore, God gives to every mother a heart 
of love for her children, which never fails. 
She has a double portion of His spirit of 
charity. 

The call of the Christian soul to holiness 
is like the call of motherhood in its irk- 
someness. The new life must be watched 
with anxious care, else it will die. He who 
would follow the Lord must first count the 
cost. Heaven is beautiful, but the way is 



Five Joyful Mysteries. 67 

straight and the gate narrow. To watch and 
to pray every day, to struggle for the mastery 
with every evil will, to go up harnessed, to 
have the loins girded and the lights burning, 
to endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus 
Christ ; these in themselves are not pleasant, 
but grievous. St. Paul suffered much from 
terror and cold, when he was a day and a 
night in the deep. The yoke of Christ is 
easy and His burden is light, but it is a yoke 
and it is a burden ; and any yoke, however 
easy, which must be worn continually, chafes 
the neck, and any burden, though ever so 
light, in time tires the back. To be often 
weary of holiness is a sign of the holy. Those 
who never bear the burden never feel the 
weight. 

FIFTH CONSIDERA TION.— Every calling, 
however limited and irksome, has its own 
joys, and the joy is in the calling. The pil- 
grim has the pleasure of walking in the morn- 
ing, the joy of resting in the evening, and 
these he would not have if he were not a pil- 
grim. That life is a failure which does not 
find its chief joy in its own calling. The 



68 Five Joyful Mysteries. 

mother has her light of life from baby's eyes. 
The merchant finds the greatest delight in 
sending out his ships and receiving back his 
cargoes. He will keep on with his business 
long after the necessity for it has ceased, for 
it is a pleasure to him. Every call of God is 
to a work, and work is the outward sign of an 
inward life. And it is the living that is joy- 
ful. There may be little pleasure in a thing 
done, but there is intense enjoyment in a 
thing doing. The soldier enjoys the. rush to 
death, for in that brief moment he feels the 
highest power of life that is in him. Men 
who work are contented while they work. It 
is only the idle who are fretful. 

The understanding has now unfolded the 
mystery of the nativity of our Lord and 
Saviour Jesus Christ ; which is the mys- 
tery of an accomplished fact ; which fixes, 
the limit and relations of life ; which is 
the outcome of previous choice and lays 
upon the life a burden and gives it a pleas- 
ure. 

THE AFFECTION of charity is demanded 
by this mystery. That overmastering love 



Five Joyful Mysteries. 69 

which makes the weak strong, the fearful 
brave and the foolish wise. Not to love is 
not to live. Desire, then, Christian soul, 
that charity, which is the one eternal thing. 
Faith and hope are the wings that bear the 
soul heavenward, but charity is the soul itself. 
Faith believes and hope looks forward, but 
charity enjoys. Faith must doubt and hope 
must wait, but charity passes through 
closed doors into the presence of God. 
To love God is to be with God. 

RESOLVE to go out and seek the love of 
God, as a Knight of old went out to seek the 
love of a maiden. He had not seen, and he 
did not know her, but her fair image was in 
his heart, it was his nature to love her and 
he knew she must be somewhere. So seek 
after God, as yet thou hath not seen Him 
nor dost thou know Him as He is, but His 
holy image is in thine heart, it is of thy 
nature to love Him, and for thee He must be 
somewhere. 



7o Five Joyful Mysteries. 



Meditation IV.. 



THE PRESENTATION OF OUR LORD AND 

SAVIOUR IN THE TEMPLE. 

SCENE— The Temple at the time of 
morning sacrifice. 

First Consideration — Every living thing 
grows after its kinds, into its work. 

Second Consideration — Growth brings puri- 
fication. 

Third Consideration — Growth gives out- 
look. 

Fourth Consideration — Growth is in obedi- 
ence to law. 

Affection — Holy obedience. 

Resolution — To serve God in all things, 
great and small. 



Five Joyful Mysteries 71 

SCENE. — It was the time of the morning 
sacrifice. The whole burnt offering was burn- 
ing on the brazen altar, and the smoke of the 
incense mingling with the smoke of the sacri- 
fice went up as a sweet smell to the Lord of 
Hosts. The offering was the symbol of the 
life of his people, the incense of the prayers 
of His saints. The organ, the psaltery and 
the harp were filling the temple with melody, 
and the Levites, the singers, were crying, one 
to another, Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of 
Hosts ; the whole earth is full of His glory. 
All the courts were filled with people who 
were waiting without at the time of incense. 
Standing at the head of the fifteen steps that 
lead from the court of the women to the 
court of Israel, pressing against the wicker 
gate, beholding and rejoicing in the grand 
ceremonial of worship, was a woman who had 
come, not only to take part in the general, 
but also to offer a special sacrifice. It was 
the day of her purification. She had brought 
her first born son to present Him before the 
Lord and to purify herself from His birth. 
The law demanded the child of her. Every 



72 Five Joyful Mysteries. 

first born of Israel is holy to the Lord. If 
she would keep it she must redeem it. So 
she had paid five shekels of the sanctuary, 
the price of the child's redemption, into the 
treasury, and now she is waiting until the 
close of the general office that she may 
make her special offering and return to her 
own home. She had brought the offering of 
the poor, a pair of turtle doves or two young 
pigeons. But she was not ashamed of her 
poverty, and as confidently expected her 
blessing as if she had brought the firstling of 
the flock, a lamb of a year old. In a little 
while the priest came and received her gift. 
He broke the neck of her sacrifice, poured the 
blood round about the base of the altar and 
laid away the flesh as the priest's portion. 
He pronounced the woman clean, gave her 
benediction and sent her back to her people. 
As she was returning, pressing her child to 
her bosom, glad that she had fulfilled for 
Him all the ordinances and commandments 
of the law, an old man met her and took the 
child from her, and holding Him in his arms 
began to bless and to prophesy. The old 



Five Joyful Mysteries. 73 

man was an Israelite indeed ; he was -just ; 
he feared God and he waited for the consola- 
tion of Israel. And it was promised him that 
he should not see death until he had seen the 
Lord's Christ. And as he held the child he 
prophesied and said, Lord, now lettest thou 
thy servant depart in peace according to thy 
word, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation, 
which thou has prepared before all people,, a 
light to lighten the Gentiles and to be the 
glory of thy people Israel. And Joseph, and 
His mother marvelled at those things which 
were spoken of Him, and Simeon blessed 
them and said unto Mary, His mother, This 
child shall be set for the fall and rising again 
of many in Israel, and for a sign that shall be 
spoken against (yea, a sword shall pierce 
through thine own soul also), that the 
thoughts of many hearts may be revealed. 
And Anna, a prophetess, of the tribe of Aser, 
a daughter of Phanuel, which departed not 
from the temple, but served God with prayers 
and fastings night and day. She coming in 
that instant likewise gave thanks unto God 
and spake of Him. to all who looked for 



74 Five Joyful Mysteries. 

redemption in Israel. Wondering at these 
words and pondering them in her heart the 
mother received her child again from the 
arms of the prophet and carried Him to her 
own home. The child was redeemed and 
she was purified ; and there was nothing else 
but to wait for the child to increase in 
wisdom, and in stature, and in favor with 
God and man, and to see what the Lord 
would have the child to do. 

FIRST CONSWERA TION— The presenta- 
tion of our Lord and Saviour in the temple 
places before the understanding the three 
mysteries of increase ; of purification and of 
outlook. Every life is subject to the law of 
growth. It was said of Jesus '* He must 
increase," and this is true not only of Him, but 
of all who like Him have in them the breath 
of life. It is of the very essence of life to 
grow. Dead things, mere stocks and stones 
do not grow. They remain the same from 
year to year. The stock may rot and the 
stone crumble away, but they do not increase, 
they are not greater to-day than they were 
yesterday. But a living plant increases year 



Five Joyful Mysteries. 75 

by year. It has within itself the power of 
making itself greater. The earth brings forth 
fruit of itself, " first the blade, and then the 
ear, and then the full corn in the ear." The 
process of growth is an unconscious process. 
It is not the choice of a man's will, it is a 
necessity of his nature. If he lives he must 
grow. He cannot by taking thought, add one 
cubit to his stature. But by breathing the air, 
eating the bread and drinking the water of 
life, he increases in stature without thought. 
The element of life which is in him takes hold 
of and assimilates the elements of life which 
are without him, and thus he adds to his 
weight and measure. All round about man 
are substances only waiting his vital touch to 
turn to life in him. And he has given him a 
mysterious power of selection, by which he is 
able to reject the evil and to choose the good. 
Here we find again that all pervading prin- 
ciple of sympathy. The phosphate desires 
phosphate, the acid, acid and the alkali, alk- 
ali, and these are chosen with unerring cer- 
tainty. The law of growth governs not only 
the outward, but also the inward life. The 



76 Five Joyful Mysteries. 

Lord Jesus increased not only in stature but 
in wisdom and in favor with God and man. 
His mind expanded and His heart unfolded, 
as the light of knowledge entered the one, 
and the heat of love inflamed the other. The 
new born child knows nothing, it has capacity 
to know everything. The wisest man has 
acquired his wisdom. He has grown into it. 
So love at the first is feeble ; it is only the 
instinct of self preservation. The child seeks 
the mother's breast- because its a place of safe- 
ty and fount of nourishment. But soon the 
child learns to love the mother, not for what 
she gives, but for what she is, and that love is 
the tenderest when the motherhood is only to 
memory, when the hair is gray and the step 
is feeble, then the love of the son sustains the 
mother. It is as natural for the heart to love 
as for the hair to grow. 

When growth ceases then life ceases. The 
spent forces may for a time hold the organi- 
zation, which the living power has built up, in 
balance, but it is only a question of time when 
the stationary life shall end in death. The 
stagnant pool dries quickly. The duration of 



Five Joyful Mysteries. 77 

every life is measured by its capacity for 
growth. The little creatures in the waters are 
born and breath and die. They cannot grow 
and therefore they cannot live. The days of 
man are three score years and ten, through 
one score he increases in stature, through 
another score he adds to his breadth and 
weight, during the third score he holds his life 
in uncertain balance, and in the ten years that 
follow he falls away into the grave. They are 
years not of gain but of loss. And it is because 
his mind and his spirit have capacity of 
growth greater than his body, because his last 
days are mentally and spiritually, his best days 
that we may hope they are also his first days. 
As his capacity for intellectual and spiritual 
acquisition are not exhausted, we may con- 
clude that he will live until he comes to the 
fullness of the stature of Christ. When his 
body ceases to grow, then his mind begins to 
grow, and we may trust that the death of his 
body is the life of his soul. That his spirit 
will then be pure spirit seeing not the ap- 
pearances, but the reality of things. 



78 Five Joyful Mysteries. 

Every creature must not only grow, but it 
must grow after its own manner. The law of 
its increase is given at creation, or birth. 
Every flower grows into its own color. The 
true beauty of life is the consequence of 
healthy growth. Consider the lilies of the 
field how they grow. They toil not, neither 
do they spin, and yet I say unto you that 
even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed 
like one of these. It is not the outward 
adornment of the body, the braiding of the 
hair and the putting on of costly apparel that 
gives grace to the countenance and dignity 
to the mien, but is is the hidden man of the 
heart. A beautiful soul makes a beautiful 
face. It is foolish to desire to look well and 
not to strive to live well. The secret thoughts 
of the heart grow out into the life. As is the 
seed so is the plant. 

Growth not only changes the life ; it also 
changes its conditions. It is from stage to 
stage. A man soon outgrows his cradle. To 
grow is to change. The days of Mary's puri- 
fication were ended ; it was no longer neces- 
sary for her to hide herself ; she had out- 



Five Joyful Mysteries. 79 

grown her weakness. The Child Jesus was no 
longer so feeble that He could not bear the 
light ; He had grown strong enough to be 
presented in the temple and to be lifted up 
before the Lord. Growth is responsibility. 
When the tree grows so that it ought to bear 
fruit, it must bear fruit. Ignorance is not 
only a misfortune, it is a crime. What a man 
ought to know he must know. To love God 
is not a choice, it is a command. The heart 
must love Him because it can love Him. 
Thus every living thing must grow after its 
own kind and into its own work. 

Second Consideration. — Growth de- 
mands and secures purification. The great 
processes of life are purifying. Cleanness is 
a demand of nature. It was not the priest 
who made S. Mary pure, it was the law of 
purity in her. When she came to the temple 
the days of her purification were ended. The 
priest only certified to a cleanness which was 
already her own. God. in nature, takes care 
of all natural impurities. The blood not only 
nourishes the tissues, it carries away the 
waste. By growth man overcomes his natural 



80 Five Joyful. iviysteries. 

imperfections. Out of weakness he is made 
strong. 

But, alas, man's impurities are not only- 
natural, they are acquired. They come not 
so much from defect of law as from violation 
of law. Man is born of a corrupted seed. 
Of him it is said, Behold, I was shapen in 
wickedness, and in sin hath my mother con- 
ceived me. Before man has seen the world's 
light he has known the world's darkness. 
The child does not come clean into the 
world, it must be washed or ever it is born. 
Its birth is not in honor, but in dishonor ; 
not in glory, but in shame The mystery of 
iniquity works in it from the beginning. 

Therefore, a man needs not only to be gen- 
erated, but also to be regenerated. He must 
be born not only of the flesh but of the 
spirit. He needs the water of regeneration 
to wash away the soil of his nature, and the 
fire of the Spirit to burn away the dross. 
And these two purifying elements are always 
at hand. Whenever the air is foul the storm 
comes, bringing the lightning and the rain. 

The process of purification is not only 



Five Joyful Mysteries. 8i 

severe, it is long. A man's evil nature follows 
him like a shadow. It follows him because it 
is a shadow. It is the image of himself as 
cast by the light of God's holiness. Because 
of this a man must be melted in the furnace 
of affliction and recast in the image of God. 
Inward principle and outward forces combine 
to cleanse the life. The hardness of the 
world and the sadness of the heart make a 
man to mourn, and mourning is a method of 
cleansing. Water of tears and fire of pain 
are never wanting to purify the soul. This 
world is not only a probation, it is a purifica- 
tion also. Evil works itself to the surface in 
order that it may be purged away. The 
misery of the wicked man leads him to 
repentence. Time and growth are great 
helps to purity. We outgrow our youthful 
lusts and the heart forgets its ambition. To 
Napoleon at St. Helena Empire was a vain 
thing. It was no longer a reality, but a bitter 
memory. Reflection brought wisdom, and 
he ceased to desire to reign. Our purity is 
God's greatest care, for without it we cannot 
see Him. 



82 Five Joyful Mysteries. 

Third Consideration. — Growth not 
only brings purification, it also gives outlook. 
As we grow taller we see more. The higher 
up the mountain a man goes the wider stretch 
of country lies around him. As soon as a man 
is conscious of a past, he also becomes con- 
scious of a future. He looks onward and sees 
the years coming to meet him, and he wonders 
what they will bring him. Of all the mysteries 
that encompass man's life, duration is the 
most mysterious. Man measures time, but he 
cannot tell what it is. Is it a real thing or 
only a condition of his own thought. Where 
are the years now that shall be in the centuries 
to come. Have they any present existence. 
That they are coming we are certain. The 
past assures us of the future. Ten thousand 
times ten thousand years ago the dog star was 
shining in the heavens, and ten thousand times 
ten thousand years to come, he will shine there 
still. As we grow into life we gaze in the 
future, we see not only time,, but events. We 
try to find out what shall befall us in the latter 
day. Of old, God sent his prophets to warn 
man to flee from the wrath to come. But the 



Five Joyful Mysteries. 83 

gift of prophecy belongs to every man that 
will use it. The future does not come by 
chance, but by law. It is in making now. 
Underneath the waters of the ocean new con- 
tinents are building. In the slums of the 
cities revolutions are preparing. We see 
before us by looking back. The past reflects, 
the present contains the future. Coming 
events cast their shadows before. The aged 
Simeon held the infant Christ in his arms and 
when he prophesied he did not look out he 
looked down. He was gazing not on the face 
of the years, but on the face of infant Christ. 
That face was the future. In it he saw the 
light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of 
the people of Israel. In the little hand he 
saw the scepter of righteousness which was to 
rule the nations as a rod of iron and break 
them in pieces like a potter's vessel. He look- 
ed on the brightness of that face and he saw 
the nations come to its light and Kings to 
the brightness of its rising. He saw in that 
arm a power to cast down the idols in 
their temples, to overthrow the might Thor, 
to light the fires of holiness in the dark woods 



84 Five Joyful Mysttries. 

of Europe, to build church and convent on 
every high hill, to ring the bells for Matins and 
for Evensong. All the vast revolution that 
destroyed the Roman and created the Chris- 
tian civilization was in the Christ, and he who 
really saw the Christ, saw the revolution. 
To grow is to see. The more we have of the 
past the more we comprehend of the future. 
This is experience, an old man knows what 
will happen, because he knows what has hap- 
pened. Our Lord's presentation in the 
Temple was an evidence of growth, it was a 
process of purification, and it was a point of 
outlook. His vision was from pain to pain. 
From the pain of the circumcision to the pain 
crucifixion. 

Fourth Consideration— -The great 

thought underlying this whole mystery is the 
idea of law. They brought the child Jesus to 
do for Him after the custom of the law. The 
purification of St. Mary was commanded by 
the law. It was not an arbitrary demand of 
her personally but a part of a vast system of 
ceremonial cleansing which included all the 
house of Jacob. Simeon the prophet was just 



Five Joyful Mysteries. 85 

or obedient to law and Anna the prophetess 
served God night and day. The growth of 
Jesus and the prophecy of Simeon were both 
according to law, the law of increase governed 
the one, the law of insight the other. It has 
been left for our own times to discover that 
God is not will, but law. That His decrees 
are eternal decrees. His law like the law of 
the Medes and Persians which altereth not. 
There is only one way for Daniel to escape 
the den of lions and that is to obey the King's 
commandment. There is only one way to 
escape the wrath of God, and that is by keep- 
ing His commandments. A broken law always 
avenges itself. Lower law is subject to higher 
law. The law of Moses to the higher law of 
Christ. The law of unreason to the law of 
reason, not by destroying but by fulfilling 
it. A divine law cannot be broken. He who 
violates divine law will be broken, broken as 
on a wheel. Whosoever falleth on this stone 
shall be broken, but on whomsoever it shall 
fall it shall grind him to powder. 



86 Five Joyful Mysteries. 

The Affection which this meditation 

should stir up in thy heart is the desire for 
holy obedience, love to obey. Seek to follow- 
not arbitrary will, thine own nor another, 
but divine law. If thou wilt grow unto thy 
full estate, obey for all thine increase is under 
the rule of law. Dost thou desire to purify 
thyself even as He is pure then obey, for 
obedience is better than sacrifice. Wilt thou 
call thine the future years and count on them 
for happiness then obey, for obedience is hap- 
piness. Walk in all the commandments and 
ordinances of the Lord blameless and thou 
shall compel Gabriel to come from the pres- 
ence of God to pronounce thy blessing. 

RE SOL VE. — To seek this day to do the 
will of God in that which is least and in that 
which is greatest. 



Five Joyful Mysteries. 87 



Meditation V. 



THE FINDING OF THE LORD JESUS IN THE 
TEMPLE. 

SCENE.— The Jericho Road and the 
Temple. 

MYSTERY LIFE'S LOSS AND GAIN. 

First Consideration — Losing. 
Second Consideration — Seeking. 
Third Consideration — Finding. 
Fourth Consideration — Joy of finding. 
Affection — Patience. 
Resolution — Daily search. 



SS Five Joyful Mysteries. 

It was noontide on the Jericho road. A 
vast multitude of men and women, of asses 
and of camels, were moving eastward toward 
the fords of the Jordan. All sorts and con- 
ditions of men were there. The beggar in 
his rags ; the proud Rabbi with his fringes 
sweeping the ground ; rich publicans ambling 
on white asses ; sturdy Gallilean fishermen 
walking beside them ; a Roman of consular 
rank in purple-bordered toga riding at the 
head of his cohort ; a Greek merchant fol- 
lowed by his train of camels ; women paus- 
ing by the wayside to care for their children ; 
boys and girls running to and fro, now losing, 
now finding their friends. As far as the eye 
could reach there was an undulating mass of 
white robes and dark faces. There was a 
confusion of sound as men talked, women 
called, children cried, camels grunted and 
asses brayed. 

This multitude was largely composed of 
Gallilean pilgrims returning from Jerusalem, 
where they had been to keep the Feast of the 
Passover. They had killed and eaten the 
Paschal lamb ; they had offered the festal 



Five Joyful Mysteries. 89 

sacrifice ; they had waved the sheave offer- 
ing, the first fruits of the barley field, before 
the Lord ; they had listened to the teachings 
of the scribes in the porches of the temple ; 
they had mingled in the life of the city. 
Rumors of insurrection had reached their 
ears. They had seen the faces of the Zeal- 
ots gather blackness as the hated Roman 
passed by ; they had speculated together as 
to when God would deliver His people and 
restore the kingdom again to Israel. As yet 
there were no signs of His coming. The 
Roman ensign floated from the tower of 
Antonio, and the Roman legion was strongly 
encamped in the city. But the great feast 
day with its grand ceremonial of worship was 
over. Political and ecclesiastical gossip had 
exhausted itself. The men were anxious to 
get back to their work, the women to their 
homes, and so crowds were leaving Jeru- 
salem. 

But while the great flow over the Jericho 
road was eastward there were two persons, a 
man and a woman, who were making their 
way painfully against the tide of travel. 



90 Five Joyful Mysteries. 

They were going to instead of from Jeru- 
salem. They had about them the restless air 
of seekers. Their faces expressed the pain- 
ful anxiety of their hearts. They went from 
company to company asking eagerly for 
somewhat which they did not find. Disap- 
pointment followed every inquiry. For two 
days they had been thus coming back seeking 
for what they had lost. And now at noon- 
tide, on this the third day, they found them- 
selves near to Jerusalem. They had set out 
from the city light of heart and were return- 
ing very heavy. When they went out they 
thought themselves full, but in a moment 
of bitterness they found themselves empty. 
They thought their child was with them, but 
when they came to look for Him they could 
not find Him. He was not with them nor 
with their kinfolk and acquaintances. So 
they had nothing else to do but to go back 
the way they had come and seek for Him. 

And now they had reached the crest of the 
Mount of Olives, and looking sadly down 
upon the city they wondered where they 
would find the child. Was He yet alive ? had 



Five Joyful Mysteries. 91 

He been crushed by the crowd ? had He 
fallen out by the way ? was He lost in the 
narrow streets, lead astray by the sights of 
the city ? had some wicked person stolen 
Him to sell Him for a slave ? Sad forbodings 
filled the heart as these two, wearied with 
their six days' journey, set about the almost 
hopeless task cf seeking for a child in the 
midst of a million of people. They wisely 
determined to begin their search at the point 
of departure. They went at once to the 
temple, the man looking in the court of the 
men, the woman searching the court of the 
women, and their spirits failed them as they 
saw each the other coming empty handed. 
They looked through the porches, but they 
could not find Him. The wide spaces of the 
temple filled them with despair. 

Well nigh hopeless they turn at last to the 
Chambers of the Scribes. Not expecting to 
find a youth of twelve years in these halls of 
learning, but they go through them simply 
because there is no where else to go. And at 
last they come to a chamber that is full of 
people engaged in eager discussion, and there 



92 Five Joyful Mysteries. 

in the midst of the teachers both hearing 
them, and asking them questions, is the child 
they had lost. His face is beaming with light 
and all around him are aged men hanging 
upon His word, astonished at His under- 
standing and answers. The mother and her 
husband look on for a while in amazement and 
at last relief finds expression in indignation, 
and the mother cries and says, Son why hast 
thou thus dealt with us, thy father and I have 
sought the sorrowing. He turns His wrapt 
face toward her and gazes at her with a far 
away look and answers How is it that ye 
sought me, whist ye not that I must be about 
my Father's business. But He did not set 
heavenly against earthly duty. The voice of 
His mother was nearer than the voice of His 
Father. He heard that voice and obeyed. He 
left the congenial precincts of the temple and 
went with His parents to Nazareth and was 
subject unto them. 

FIRST CONSIDERA TION— This scene of 
the finding of the Lord and Savious Jesus 
Christ in the temple presents to the under- 
standing the mystery of life's loss and gain. 



Five Joyful Mysteries. 93 

The course of man's life is not straight, it is 
zig zag. Like the branches of a tree he must 
twist downward in order to grow upward. If 
we compare man's life to a journey up a 
mountain side then the way is too steep for 
him, he must make many curves and turns 
that often bring him back nearly to his start- 
ing point. If we say man sails across the 
waters of life then the winds are contrary and 
he must tack continually. His life is a con- 
stant succession of losses He first loses the 
unconsciousness of childhood. A child does 
not know self. It is conscious only of its 
emotion. It feels joy and grief but it does 
not reflect upon them. Because it does not 
know, it does not seek in any way to change 
itself. It does not try to hide the feelings of 
the heart. It is terribly true. When it is 
happy it laughs, when it is grieved it cries. 
What it thinks it says. It is swayed by the 
passion of the moment, like the little lake in 
the meadow, the child is placid when there 
is a calm and ruffled when the wind 
blows. This unconsciousness is the charm of 
the child. His is the Kingdom of Heaven, 



94 Five Joyful Mysteries. 

he has no yesterday nor to-morrow, he lives in 
an eternal now. 

But there comes a time when this artless- 
ness is lost. The child comes to a knowledge 
of himself. He reflects on his behaviour. He 
wonders how he appears to others. He no 
longer dares to say what he thinks nor do as 
he feels ; he is afraid to smile and ashamed 
to cry. This is a sad loss. The child which 
but awhile ago was free as the bird becomes 
awkward and constrained. He does not know 
where to find himself, he is no longer a child 
and not yet a man. He has to seek for that 
unconscious life until he finds it again. 

The second great loss in life is that of tra- 
ditional faith. All our first beliefs and opin- 
ions are received at second hand. When we 
start in life we have nothing of our own ; only 
the traditions of the fathers. We believe not 
because we see for ourselves, but because the 
woman hath told us. Our faith rests upon 
the unconscious belief in the wisdom and 
integrity of the elders. But there comes a 
time when this is no longer possible. The 
youth goes out into life. He finds there are 



Five Joyful Mysteries. 95 

people beyond the mountains. The world is 
wider than he thought. He hears there doc- 
trines which he was never taught at home. 
Coming thus in conflict with antagonistic 
opinion, his own mind wakens up. He must 
give a reason for the faith that is in him. It 
will never do to say my mother told me so, 
that will only bring a man into contempt. 
Each must discover for himself what he 
believes and why he believes it. And this 
process of discovery leads him to doubt many 
things which he had before received as 
true. 

God has not so arranged the universe that 
infallibility lodges under my roof tree. And 
this beginning of doubt fills the heart with 
terror. The foundations are cast down, the 
world seems retaining to chaos. When the 
eyes of the blind are opened, then he sees 
men as trees walking, When the guide of 
youth fails, then the fearful soul cries out, to 
whom shall we go, who has the words of 
eternal life. 

This state is one of great danger. The lost 
faith must be found again or the life will be 



96 Five Joyful Mysteries. 

lost also. The traveller will perish who does 
not know his way out of the woods. The sail- 
or will never come into port who has neither 
chart nor compass. 

The third great loss which befalls a man is 
the loss of interest in life. The entrance upon 
an active career is a time of great enthusiasm. 
The exercise of faculty fills the heart with joy. 
It is a delight to work, for work employs 
thought. But by and by work becomes 
routine. The handicraft is mastered and the 
fingers follow unconsciously the lines of habit. 
And the rewards of life are not satisfying. 
The game is not worth the candle, and the 
soul grows sick of living. The man has " the 
disease of forty years." Here again he is in 
danger. 

A life without interest can never be a great 
life. A ship cannot sail without wind nor an 
engine run without steam. The interest must 
be found again or the life will rot in stagna- 
tion. Not only is the natural life subject to 
losses, but such misfortunes happen to the 
spiritual life also. The young convert enjoys 
the sweetness of God's presence. His very 



Five Joyful Mysteries, 97 

youth brings him nearer to God. He is the 
lamb which the Lord carries in His bosom, 
but when he grows stronger the Shepherd puts 
him down and drives him with the flock. He 
does not carry he only feeds him. The dry 
and dusty road, the hard and scanty pasture 
are not so soft as the shepherd's bosom. All 
the sweetness goes out of life with its weak- 
ness. Babies are fondled, not grown men 
and women. This loss of conscious consola- 
tion is serious. It makes many conversions 
to be in vain. When the fires of zeal die down 
as die down they must, then these in despair 
neglect to cover the coals with ashes and the 
fire goes out altogether, and the heart is as 
dead as a clinker. 

Second Consider a tion— The state of 

loss is a state of transition. It is not one in 
which the life can rest. When the loss is 
known then the search begins. A man will 
spend ten dollars without concern, but the 
loss of one will fill him with uneasiness. We 
cannot without great effort be content with 
loss. It is not natural. A woman having ten 
pieces of silver, if she lose one of them will 



98 Five Joyful Mysteries. 

light a candle and sweep the house and search 
diligently until she find it. The process of 
search is very painful, and the longer it con- 
tinues the harder it is to bear. 

The heart grows ever more anxious as the 
trembling hands turning over the papers fail 
to find the missing will. When search grows 
wearisome there is always a temptation to 
give it up. We conclude that the thing is lost 
and we will look for it no longer, but will pro- 
vide some cheap substitue for it. We have 
lost our diamond we cry for a moment, why 
there, there, there a diamond gone cost me 
two thousand ducats in Frankfort. But after 
a vain search for a while we say, go to, the 
diamond is lost, let us make us a diamond of 
paste instead. No one will know the differ- 
ence and it will save us trouble. We lose 
our faith in man's word, to find God's word 
instead is a great labor. To seek for that we 
must go out into the desert, and up into the 
mountain. And we cry to ourselves we can- 
not find the truth, let us believe a lie. It 
takes long to find sincerity, let us put up with 
a convention. Let us say we believe whatever 



Five Joyful Mysteries. 99 

it is necessary to believe and go about our 
business. Let the lips hide the heart. We 
have lost the consolations of God, to find 
them again means reconversion, let us go on 
without them and put up with the con- 
solations of the world. 

It is the horror of many lives that they are 
passed in a state of conscious loss. A loss 
which the life is striving to hide from itself, 
from the world and from God. Far better is 
the terror of search than the deadness of des- 
pair. It is better to be like St. Peter and 
weep bitterly, than to be like Judas and hang 
oneself. The search is never to be given over 
until the lost is found. That is God's way. 
He seeks until He finds it. And the only way 
is to go like SS. Joseph and Mary, back to the 
point of departure. Except ye be converted 
and become as little children ye cannot enter 
into the Kingdom of Heaven. Ye must be 
born again. This going back is never pleas- 
ant. It seems such a waste of time. We 
have come so far down the wrong road, why 
not go the wrong road to the end. Simply 
because we do not want to go the place the 



ioo Five Joyful Mysteries. 

wrong road leads to. We shall have to 
come back at last ; better go back at once. It 
is a shame to lose for that shows careless- 
ness. The shame of loss must be cured by 
the pain of search. 

Third Considera tion. — Seeking is 
followed by finding. Search continued long 
and carefully enough will find a needle in a 
hay stack. We think it strange that the 
thing we search for is in the very last place 
in which we look, forgetting that when we 
find we cease to look, and hence it must be 
in the last place. The eyes of SS. Mary and 
Joseph opened wide with amazement when 
they found the Child Jesus in the chamber 
of the Scribe. They never thought to 
find Him here. They looked there only 
because they had looked in vain elsewhere, 
and here at last they found Him. Discovery 
always comes when hope is dead. Columbus 
promised the rebellious sailors that if he did 
not find the land by such a day he would 
turn the ship about and head for Spain. Just 
as the time expired ; when the day was about 
to dawn which should be to him a day of 



Five Joyful Mysteries. ioi 

failure, he saw in the early morning dark- 
ness the lights burning on the Island of San 
Salvador. If we look we must see ; if we 
seek we must find. 

But we do not find just what we look for. 
That which we find is better than what we 
had lost. The diamond gathers new luster 
from lying on the ground. Jesus in the tem- 
ple was greater in the eyes of His mother 
than he had ever been in the home or the 
school. There is an unconsciousness of man- 
hood and womanhood that is much grander 
than the unconsciousness of childhood. The 
one is temporary because it is instinctive ; it 
has cost nothing. The other is permanent 
because it is acquired ; it is a pearl of great 
price. The man has found himself and his 
place. He feels perfectly at home in that 
state of life into which it has pleased God to 
call him. He does not need to assert him- 
self, for no one denies him his rights ; he 
does not need to think of his manners, for he 
knows his behavior is becoming. He is no 
longer the little pool stirred by the little 
breeze. It takes much to move him, but 



102 Five Joyful Mysteries. 

when he is excited by righteous cause then 
he, like the child, shows what is in him. 
Sometimes it is terrible. The storm of pas- 
sion breaks, the waves run high and fierce, 
and the crested foam breaks against the 
shore. When Washington found Lee retreat- 
ing from the field of Monmouth he rose in 
his stirrups and poured out upon him the 
vials of his wrath so fierce and hot that the 
old man withered in the heat and never 
recovered ; and when, as President, the same 
Washington heard of St. Clair's useless and 
stupid defeat he stormed so that those who 
were round about him sat still in blanched 
silence till the storm was spent. He stormed 
because he was conscious not of himself, but 
of the great wrong done his country. A cul- 
tured man, like a child, speaks as he thinks 
and does as he feels, because he thinks truly 
and feels rightly. The most charming thing 
in all the world is the unconscious smile of 
welcome on a woman's face. Sunlight break- 
ing on the lake is not half so beautiful as eyes 
that brighten simply because they are glad to 
see. The lost childhood is found again in the 



Five Joyful Mysteries 103 

self-centered but not self-conscious manhood. 

When the lost faith is found it is no longer 
hearsay, it is experience. We are able to say 
to the woman now, we believe, not because 
of thy word, but because we have seen Him 
ourselves and know of a surety that this is 
the Christ that should come into the world. 
Faith, which is the result of conscious 
search, can never be lost. As soon can the 
trained eye lose the sense of color as the 
trained heart lose the sight of God. The 
color is in the eye and the God is in the heart. 
The eye must fail and the heart perish before 
the color can be lost and the God wanting. 
As the children say, "findings is keepings." 

And the consolations which fill the heart of 
the time-worn saint are far more precious 
than those which puff up the neophyte. The 
last is glad from a sense of sins forgiven, the 
first from a sense of duty done. He has 
looked for consolation everywhere, and found 
it at last in his self-denials. He sees his rain- 
bow of promise through his tears. Interest 
in life is found again when the end of life is 
put first, the means last ■ when a man does 



104 Five Joyful Mysteries. 

not live to eat, but eats to live ; when his 
work has an object beyond his own petty 
necessities. Peter Cooper passed the last years 
of his life spending for the good of others 
what he had earned in his first years, and his 
last years were the best. Silas Marner found 
the living Eppie far more interesting than the 
lost gold. A keen interest in the affairs of 
church and state more than compensates for 
loss of interest in personal concerns. When 
a man's self is stale, then he can find fresh- 
ness in the greenwood under the clear sky. 
Larger life is keener life. He who enters 
into the life of his neighbors enters more 
deeply into his own life. 

Fourth Consideration. — The great- 
est joy of life is the joy of finding. When 
Archemides, sitting in his bath, found at last 
the long sought for solution of his problem, 
he ran naked through the streets of Syracuse 
shouting like a very boy, "Eureka ! eweka /" 
When the shepherd finds his sheep, the 
woman her piece of silver, then they call 
their friends and neighbors together and say, 
Rejoice with me, for I have found that which 



Five Joyful Mysteries. 105 

I had lost. It was meet that we should make 
merry and be glad for this thy brother was 
lost and is found ; he was dead and is 
alive again. First possession is nothing, 
recovered possession is everything. Always 
rich, never rich. Riches lost and riches 
found make riches to be valued. The heart 
that mourns is the heart that is glad. A life 
without losses is a life without joys. Bereave- 
ment is the mother of possession. When 
there is a voice heard in Rama, lamentation 
and bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her 
children and refused to be comforted for her 
children, because they are not. Then the 
consoling cry is, thus saith the Lord : Refrain 
thy voice from weeping and thine eyes from 
tears, for thy work shall be rewarded, saith 
the Lord, and they shall come again from the 
hand of the enemy, and there is hope in thine 
end that thy children shall come again to 
their own border. The understanding has 
now unfolded the fifth and last of the joyful 
mysteries, and we learn that life's losses are 
life's gains. What God borrows He pays 
again with interest. 



106 Five Joyful Mysteries. 

THE AFFECTION which this meditation 
demands of the soul is the affection of 
patience. If the soul would gain her losses, 
she must love to suffer. The way of the cross 
is the way back to God„ He who loves not 
the pains of search will never find the lost 
sheep. The pierced hands and feet are the 
marks of the Shepherd's faithfulness in search- 
ing. 

RESOL VE to seek after God by doing each 
day the painful right instead of the easy 
wrong. 

HERE ENDETH THE MYSTERIES. 



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